Going bonkers over Nintendo Famicom add-on
Hahahaha! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I just remembered something funny that happened way back in the 1980s concerning my fanaticism for all things Nintendo, particularly the Nintendo Entertainment System and, of course, the Nintendo Family Computer. My cousins shared this obsession.
In our desire to improve our gaming experience (with the Nintendo Family Computer), we scoured a local Christmas bazaar (yeah, it was that time of year) for not only new games but console enhancements as well. We found this nifty (well, at least we thought it was nifty about an hour before we bought it) add-on to the Family Computer’s controllers.
It was actually a replacement part that would have taken the place of the eight-way direction control by turning the flat cross-shaped key into a mini-joystick. Yeah, right, as if that would work.
Well, it worked, all right, meaning it functioned as it was supposed to function. But we later found out that it could never really replace the flat key simply because the little shlong protruding from the center of the crosspiece delayed reaction time. Oh, and it also made your left thumb (and a few fingers) hurt faster than the D-pad.
Sigh. Now I’m stuck with a single thought: Why did we ever buy the darned thing and, worse, install it in our Famicom controllers!
The little gadget looks kinda like the D-pad on this nifty baby, the Archer Competition Controller. The only difference is, the “joystick” on the cross-shaped key we bought looked more like a cigarette stub than a small marble.
Many thanks to vidgame.net for the image.
1 opinion for Going bonkers over Nintendo Famicom add-on
Mike
May 7, 2008 at 16:32
I hated that add-on. Hurts my fingers, and it never helped out in gameplay. A relative got the same thing for his main controller so I had to choose controller 2 each time we played.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: